Mr. Assad’s remarks, as reported by the North’s state-run news media, gave no date or further details.

President Trump has vowed not to repeat the errors of his predecessors with North Korea, but his apparent softening toward the country resembles approaches taken by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Above, Mr. Trump with the North Korean delegation last week.

• The U.S. and China ended trade talks in Beijing, above, without any announced deals.

The apparent impasse left the White House with the thorny issue of what to do about China’s industrial policies, and left unresolved the fate of the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE.

The ongoing divisions and reversals on trade under President Trump have flummoxed the U.S. allies also hit by tariffs. International leaders are courting whichever advisers they think will listen, and Mr. Trump will face their grievances at the G-7 summit meeting in Canada on Friday.

Mr. Mattis had already disinvited the Chinese military from a multinational naval exercise this summer.

Speaking over the weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference in Singapore, Mr. Mattis said China’s activities in the South China Sea were “in stark contrast to the openness our strategy promotes” and called into question “China’s broader goals.”

Gene tests on tumor samples were able to identify women who could safely skip chemotherapy and take only a drug that blocks the hormone estrogen or stops the body from making it. Above, Bari Brooks of Tennessee, one of the roughly 10,000 women who took part in the study.

“We can spare thousands and thousands of women from getting toxic treatment that really wouldn’t benefit them,” said an author of the study, adding, “It really changes the standard of care.”

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Image

CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times

• President Trump will host a dinner on Wednesday in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, restoring a White House tradition that he had abandoned during his first year in office. Above, a setting for the state dinner for France’s president in April.

Mr. Trump has a long history of making inflammatory statements about Muslims. During his campaign, he told an interviewer, “I think Islam hates us.” In 2015, he said he would consider closing mosques.

The guest list was not made available.

Business

• ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup will be prosecuted on criminal cartel charges, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said. The allegations concern the sale of $1.9 billion worth of ANZ shares in 2015.

In the News

• President Trump’s lawyers, in a confidential letter to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, made a brash assertion of executive power in a bid to avoid a subpoena. [The New York Times]

• Diapers, sanitary products and surgical masks have begun washing up on beaches north of Sydney after 83 shipping containers fell from a Taiwanese-owned ship off New South Wales. [BBC]

• A Canberra law firm representing a number of Commonwealth Games athletes seeking asylum said that the government rejected requests to postpone protection visa interviews so their clients could receive psychological counseling. [The Sydney Morning Herald]

• In eastern Afghanistan, a leftover rocket killed four and maimed seven young members of an extended family. “I wanted to cry,” said their doctor. [The New York Times]

• The Australian author and academic Germaine Greer, 79, stirred a furor by dismissing rape as “bad sex” and calling for easing penalties for sexual assault. [The New York Times]

• Tim Cahill, 38, is set to play in a fourth World Cup finals after being included in Bert van Marwijk’s final 23-man Australia squad on Sunday. [ESPN]

Although camels have been used by militaries throughout history, the Camel Corps began to fall apart in 1861, the year its lead advocate, Jefferson Davis, the former secretary of war, began leading the pro-slavery Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War.

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